Monthly Archives: May 2012

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5 months down! Wow, what a ride and experience it has been!! I appreciate all y’all’s support as I tackle this project 🙂 YOU have made it a lot more fun!

I went back out to the local carnival tonight (still wearing my sweaty/stinky gym clothes, lol) and was able to shoot each ride I wanted to! I’m pleased with these photos! One of them will be one of my submissions to the Long Exposure project. One of my shots from the ADKs is my first submission, and I think my last one will be from the lake shot. I really like the first three shots, and wills submit one of them; but I would like your help selecting your favorite of the three (or any other long exposure shot I’ve done)! So, please leave me a comment about which you think I should submit, and maybe why you like it better than the others (or why you don’t like the others). Thanks!

The Carnival is in town for the rest of the week and the weekend, so I couldn’t resist the urge to try and shoot some long exposure frames of the rides. I’m lucky I didn’t show any later, cause I got the last few cycles of the night (I’ll go back, but earlier, lol). But I did capture these three that I like. Had I more time, I might have purchased some ride tickets 🙂

I had a couple ideas of what I wanted to shoot tonight, and my first idea worked out (I won’t tell you what the other is, you’ll just have to wait till I shoot it!)! Cedar lake is a fairly large lake (for CT) near my house. I’ve shot here before, but not at night. Tonight a storm was moving in, so I didn’t want to wait till it was raining and dark, so I shot just after sunset, when there was still enough light to see and shoot moderately long exposures. It was a bit breezy, so the water was not smooth enough for to see the reflection.

Here in the US we are celebrating Memorial Day. Today is the day we honor all those who gave their life for our freedom. From Wikipedia:
“Memorial Day is a federal holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars. ”

Please remember to take a moment and honor those who gave all, and those that they left behind. Please teach your children the true meaning of this holiday; that it is not about BBQs, parties, etc.

For my first shot I wanted to capture the reflection of the trees and sky in the pond near my house. I guess I shouldn’t have used ISO 400, but have used a lower IOS and longer exposure.

For my second shot I thought it might be cool to do a moon-trail. You have heard of star trails before; this is like that, but with the moon drawing a line 🙂 It is only a 10 min exposure, so it’s not really a long line, but what do you think? It’s not what I was expecting. Have you done this before? How did it turn out? Feel free to post a link to your shot and discuss the settings!

And as you can see below, there is a reason I called it experimenting! 🙂

So, I think yesterday was the first day I did not actually put up some sort of post. I meant to post a photo from my iPhone after we got down from the mountain while having dinner, but I was so wiped out after the hike I completely forgot. So, today I’m posting for yesterday (I’ll post for today later).

Yesterday my good friend Tom and I climbed Whiteface Mt. and Mt. Esther in the ADKs of Upstate New York. These two peaks, #5 @ 4867 ft and #28 @ 4240 ft, of the “46ers” , respectfully, are located just north of Lake Placid (the town and lake). We took the trail starting at Wilmington, NY, climbed Whiteface, and topped Esther on the return trip. From the reservoir in Wilmington, it’s a 5.2 mile trip with 3620 ft of elevation gain. Esther is off the main trail 1.2 miles, and adds a few hundred feet of elevation climb. In 9.5 hrs of hiking we hiked 12.8 miles with about 4000 ft of elevation gain. We did take an hour break at the summit of Whiteface for lunch, photography, and enjoying the amazing view!

The hardest part of the trail is defending the almost 2 miles of very steep and rocky trail before reaching the turn off for Esther. IMO its easier to go up than down, at least on the joints and feet! Once we were down that part, with only 1.4 miles left to reach the car, my energy level spiked! Almost done! It was a hard climb, but lots of fun, and well worth the views and experience! (I have to note that at the top there were dozens of people, but that is because there is a road that comes within 300 ft of the summit, and an elevator takes you the rest of the way. IMHO all the noisy people/pets/kids at the top really detracts from the serenity I normally experience at a mountain summit.)

Here is the summit the night before, as we were driving in. There it a weather observatory tower at the top.

I saw this girl looking out from the summit and could not resist taking the photo. I edited it so the focus was more on her and what she was looking at then the beauty of the view. What do you think about it? A good edit, bad edit? What would you have done different?

18 mm, 1/160 sec, f/8, ISO 100 (Looking Out)

Lake Placid is seen below:

18 mm, 1/100 sec, f/13, ISO 100 (Lake Placid In View)

There are many areas in the ADKs where you come across a stand of dead trees like this, with many young trees crowding the ground.

I tend to recycle as much as I can (it saves me money on trash service, not going to debate the environmental pluses/minuses of recycling here), and had a few of my cleaned out yogurt containers sitting on the counter ready to go to the recycle bin, but the colors caught my eye a few days ago, so I left them for such a time as this 🙂

I thought it would be cool to play with them a little in front of the camera as an exercise in color. I also hope this encourages you to look at everything around you for inspiration for shooting! Look at the images below and then think about that they are of my trash! Subjects for your work can be anything! I challenge you to look for interesting subjects in new and abnormal locations/places, maybe even your own trash can!

And as an FYI, I’m leaving in about 15 min to head back up to the ADK Mountains in upstate New York for tonight and tomorrow. I may not get a chance to post tomorrow, but I will be taking some photos, you can be sure 🙂 I’ll definitely post on Sunday.

I’ve got this great idea for one of my submissions for a Long Exposure photo challenge jointly hosed by Seeing Spots Photography and Nick Exposed. Check out either site for details on how you can join the challenge! This is the second one they have jointly held. The first begin a Quotography Challenge. It was a lot of fun! They are both great photographers, so feel free to check them out and get some creative ideas for your own work!

But anyway, my shot didn’t turn out at all. Turns out a cloud covered moonless night didn’t have enough light, even for a 5 min exposure. So, as my bed was starting to call my name, begin after 10:30 and all, I decided to try something new to me: light paining w/ a speedlight. I’m not satisfied with the results, but then again I didn’t read up on it or spend any time looking at examples. I will reattempt at some point, maybe for this challenge? But if you have any tips/hints, please leave them in the comments section; they are greatly appreciated!!

This afternoon after work I took a detour to Case “Mountain” in Manchester, CT. I put mountain in quotes because it summits at a mere 744 feet (227 m). It may not be tall, but since it’s located near the edge of town, it feels quite secluded. There are many different trails winding through the park, many not on the map or even marked! It was a nice break from just heading straight home 🙂 However, I didn’t ‘pack’ smart for this hike. I hauled my tripod, my full camera bag (sling type), an umbrella, and light jacket for the 3+ miles. I should have left the jacket and tripod at the car (which was near the waterfall), but I guess I was prepared for anything, lol.

As it was drizzly (light rain/mist) I didn’t take the camera out a lot, but I did take a few tripod mounted shots of the waterfall near the park entrance.

Tonight on my way home I passed through foggy Waterford, CT, and thought a shot of something in the fog would be cool. But when I pulled into a parking lot, I saw this music store right next to a music themed pizza restaurant. I thought it was kind of cool, esp w/ the neon in the window.

I also stopped at a small pond to try some stuff out. The last one is just light painting with a flash light, then using split toning to change it from white to colors. I dedicate the last one to my awesome gf 🙂

Today while I was waiting to meeting up with friends to go see the new Avengers movie I took a short drive to the Niantic River Bridge. I actually ended up there by accident; I just started driving south trying to find a beach/park to do some reading and maybe shoot (the shoreline is south in CT, weird, right?). I stumbled upon an area where the crab/lobster fisherman leave their traps and had some fun shooting.

After the movie, we all went to one of those shore-line seafood joints that are only open in the summer and had dinner under an amazing sunset before I had to head home and get ready for tomorrow and the work week. I took some liberty with editing a few of the sunset photos and enjoy how the look. I have several more ‘normal’ photos on my Flickr feed, if you care to peruse them.

Tonight I went on a photo shoot in down-town New London, CT, for a photo calling put on by Artbycamila The challenge is “Red” & “Loneliness”. I came up with an idea for the image and my friend agreed to model for me.

My plan was to have her crouched near a building, and using a long exposure, have people walking past her, showing blurred people w/ her being sharp and in focus. I wasn’t able to get the image I was after. There were not a lot of people out, like I had hoped, but I did ask a couple of guys to walk in front of the lens a couple times, but as you can see, they don’t show up in the image. I’m not sure If I need more people, or just to have them walk real slow, or do it in daylight. This is my first attempt at doing this kind of shot, and I guess I need to experiment some more 🙂 However, I am pleased with the finished image, but not sure if it will be my final submission.

On Monday of this week I started my training for the Tough Mudder event in July. I quickly (as in about 2 min) realized that I really NEED to train for this! That has helped me not miss a day this week! While one week isn’t much to celebrate, it is the starting of the habit, so that I will be as ready as possible come July 14th!

So in honor of signing up and completing a week, I took some shots of my (up until recently) neglected weight set.

60mm, 2 sec, f/13, ISO 400, 60mm macro lens (Weight Training)

60mm, 1.6 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400, 60mm macro lens (Pumping Iron)

In this last photo I set a longer exposer, and after about half the time, I slowly rotated the focus ring.

I’ve not done this before on my blog, and please let me know if this type of post is just adding clutter to your inbox or is welcome. Be honest, please! Because if this I helpful, I’ll do it from time-to-time, if not, I wont be offended or bothered.

Today Amazon.com has Photoshop Elements for $47 shipped. From the limited amount of research I’ve done on it, it’s supposed to have much of the same functionality of the full version and is good for amateurs like myself who are looking to do more than Lightroom can do (layers, merging, etc).

As a disclaimer I don’t get anything by you buying this or any other product I discuss, I’m just trying to give back a little to the photo community 🙂

Have a great day and stay tuned for my regular photo post today!

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Have you ever lost your creative drive? Had a time when you couldn’t think of anything to shoot? Gotten stuck in a photography rut? Try this: pick some random, possibly mundane, object and try to shoot it. Don’t stop shooting till you get an something that is completely different from how you saw it before. Try different angles, perspectives, lighting types/placements, depth of field, shutter speed, editing techniques, etc. If you have a macro filter or lens, shoot something small or just up close and personal. If not, try a longer exposure while twisting the zoom or focus ring. Start doing that every so often and you will always be able to find a way to create a new image that will break you from your ‘box!!’

Today I did just that. I thought I would try and shoot an ice cube. That’s a pretty mundane and ordinary object, that we see all the time! It took many different shots before I finally tried something completely different. I was trying to use my speed light to cause it to glow and highlight the air pockets. I didn’t like any of those (till I editing a couple). Then I grabbed my laser pointer (It has had an appearance in a couple of posts, a chair and fruit), and It got me excited seeing what was happening on my live view 🙂 It was totally unlike anything I’ve done with ordinary objects. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did creating them 🙂

This afternoon I went out on my deck w/ my macro lens, just to see what there was that would grab my interest. I noticed some spider webs on a tree on my deck, and commenced to find their creator. Then I saw him trying to scurry off the side of the deck rail, so I persuaded him to come back to the top (I didn’t hurt him, just chased him w/ a twig), so we could meet. He was kind enough to pause during his busy day and pose for me.

60 mm, 1/25 sec, f/11, ISO 200, 60mm macro lens (Mr. 8-eyes)

60 mm, 1/25 sec, f/11, ISO 200, 60mm macro lens (Spider)

On my way home tonight I saw a thunderstorm off in the distance, in the direction I was traveling. I normally don’t get to see them so far off as CT is full of hills and trees, so they are usually right on top of me before I know it. But I had a little time to try and find a location to shoot before it pushed too far away. I’ve been wanting to shoot lighting for a long time, and thought this could be my chance. I wasn’t able to capture anything spectacular; most of the bolts were internal to the clouds. It did make an enjoyable sight, though 🙂

Recently I took part in a photo challenge titled “Quotography” where I was assigned 3 quoted and had to create an image that somehow fits the quote. This challenge was hosted by Nick at Nick Exposed and Shannon at Seeing Spots. You can find the gallery, and my 3 submissions, here in the Project Gallery. My first one is #13, but I encourage you to see all the great submissions!

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Tonight I was down in New London for the first session of Work and Learn, where I will be teaching a class on personal finance in a couple months. Work and Learn‘s mission is to, “… help unemployed and underemployed adults develop their mind, body, social skills, and spirit[i] to be able to contribute to their families and community.”

It was raining all day and night so I took the opportunity before I left for home to shoot Bank Street (during a brief break in the rain). On the weekend, this street is packed with people visiting the reasutraunts and bars, but on a rainy Tuesday, there were few people out.

Part of my reason for wanting to shoot here was to scout it for a photo challenge hosted by artbycamila. Keep a look out for that post coming up 🙂

On my way home from a men’s group, I was trying to think of what I could shoot. I had a couple ideas, but I happened to look out the passenger window and see this pond I pass every week going to/from church. So I quickly turned around, came back and drove down near the water and took some shots. These two are my favorites; the shutter speed is quite different between them, so it’s nice to see how that can affect the photo with the same effective exposure.